


Fighting Fire With Flame (The Burn With Me Tonight Remix)

by Huntress79



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Babyfic, Clint Barton & Kate Bishop Friendship, Clint Barton Made a Different Call, Developing trust, F/M, Girltalk, Natasha Romanov Joins SHIELD, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Pregnancy, Romance, Slow Build, Spies & Secret Agents, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24224131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress79/pseuds/Huntress79
Summary: Striking a deal with the Widow wasn’t exactly Clint’s order, to start with. But then again, nothing was as expected at all about the whole situation.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32
Collections: be_compromised Remix Exchange 2020





	Fighting Fire With Flame (The Burn With Me Tonight Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scribblemyname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/gifts).



> written for Be Compromised Remix Exchange 2020 and scribblemyname. I honestly had a hard time settle on a story to remix, and finally chose “Burn With Me Tonight”, mostly because of the whole situation Clint and Nat find themselves in.

*********************

For quite some time, Natasha just stares at the white plastic stick sitting on the bathroom counter of her Lisbon hotel room. As if she could change the result by sheer willpower alone.

Deep down, she knew it was a lost cause. She knew that she had made a mistake, and that she was paying the price, one way or another.

Too bad an innocent live also would pay that price.

She let out a humorless chuckle at that thought. She, the feared assassin that had a ledger dripping with red, was feeling sorry for something that shouldn’t exist to start with.

But here she was, in a nondescript hotel room, wrapping her mind around the fact that she was pregnant. Pregnant with Yasha’s child. And with both their luck, the child would never, ever see the light of day.

*********************

Natasha spends the next two weeks roaming through all of Portugal and most of Spain before heading North. She knows that not only the Russians are looking for her, one of their most valuable assets, but also at least one Western secret service organization.

Sure, she knew that they apparently held higher moral standards than what she was used to so far, but she’s also under no illusion that they might kill her at sight, pregnant or not. Natasha herself had put that proverbial target on her back, so to speak.

With various killings, assassinations across the globe, always taking out those who wanted even more power as they already had at their disposal. If she’s honest for a moment, the world’s a better place because of her work, not that it changes a single thing on how she feels about it in the first place.

By the time she makes it to the border between Belgium and France, Nat already has a hard time to conceal the baby bump. Most of the time, she makes use of whatever larger pieces of clothing she gets her hands on, be it an overshirt, a jacket or a coat.

Of all the changes her body goes through right now, the consistent existence of feeling sick to the stomach is her least favorite at all (if she were to rank all the unpleasantries happening). More than once since finding out, she barely made it to a rest- or bathroom to empty her stomach, even though she barely eats anything solid for over a week and relies on fruit juices and teas and soups to get by.

*********************

Sooner than she expected it, the world outside her Brussels safehouse comes knocking, in the person of a man Nat has heard rumors about - Clint Barton. According to her info, he’s an exceptional archer, who never, ever misses a target, but apparently, he’s also exceptional in tracking other people down.

For some hot moments, they are at a standoff in her kitchen - Clint with his bow drawn, an arrow nocked at her heart, Nat with the knife she started to wear at her body at any given time, in favor of her gun. She just couldn’t stomach the thought of a stray bullet ending up in her extended belly by accident.

At long last, his eyes land on her stomach, and Natasha just can’t help it. She challenges him, asks him if he was willing to kill an innocent being, and finally, he lowers the bow, if only for a fraction (which in turn leaves the arrow now nocked at her belly).

And that’s when Nat does something she never, ever would have considered before - she starts to bargain with this American agent.

Not for her own life, not at all. If anything, Natasha holds no ounce of illusion that there was a happy end in her future. Not with the all the deaths she has caused, with all the blood staining her hands for good.

No, she bargains for her unborn daughter, for the last thing she has of Yasha, of a man she probably might have loved in a different situation. A man who, despite everything, saw something in her that she still fails to see for herself, and who, in the end, had to pay an equally bitter price just for that.

The American is clever, she has to acknowledge. Once he has overcome the initial shock of seeing her pregnant, he asks her to lift her shirt, just high enough for him to make sure she’s not wearing a fake belly.

Natasha does as told, even though her insides are churning. But if it gets her closer to securing the survival of her daughter, then so be it. By now, she’s willing to do everything to bring this baby to life, even if she has to abandon her right afterwards. With the way the Red Room corrupted her mind from an early age on, it’s probably the best outcome after all. She just wouldn’t be a good mother, and sometimes, Nat knows deep down, you have to give something up for good, even if you love it more than your own life.

She keeps bargaining with him, promising him that she will NOT kill him if he makes sure her daughter survives whatever comes once he brings her in. If he makes sure the little girl in her belly ends up in a good family.

Bargaining is surprisingly exhausting, even more so when you’re already hanging in there by a thin thread, so to speak, and so, Nat finds herself swaying several times before she gives in and sits down at the small kitchen table.

The man doesn’t say a word, not for a long time, only watching her every move. In other circumstances, it would yank her chain immensely, but now, Natasha only does care for one thing, and that isn’t her being in his scope.

When he finally speaks up again, he tells her that he agrees to protecting the baby, under one condition. She has to give him something to trust her, since he has to take that condition to his handlers and do some bargaining of his own.

*********************

On the flight to the States, Natasha’s mind is running a mile a minute, so to speak. Of all the scenarios she had developed in the safety of said mind, getting married to Clint (or anyone else for that matter) wasn’t even a blimp on her radar.

Neither was allowing him to adopt her unborn child, but at least that meant that her daughter’s survival was secured.

She knows what probably will follow now, once they have touched down in the States. SHIELD will take her in, most likely in custody, keeping her locked up until they know how to milk her for information (or until her daughter was born, whatever came first).

In the weeks since falling off the grid, Natasha spent a lot of time storing information about the FSB, the Red Room, pretty much everything she could think of, away in places she could access remotely and hand it over.

But her new husband surprises her, once again. Mostly by not taking her directly to SHIELD HQ, opting for his apartment in New York instead.

Once there, Natasha meets a young woman, who Clint introduces as Kate, his neighbour and part-time caretaker of his dog, Lucky, who keeps on dancing around her feet, unperturbed by the fact that she almost completely freezes up, her mind replaying memories of the Red Room’s guard dogs fighting over the body of one of her sisters that didn’t meet the expectations of their trainers and ended up as dog food instead.

It’s almost predictable that Natasha makes the mistake of thinking that Clint and Kate are more than just neighbours. Luckily for her, neither of them takes any offense at that, and once her and Clint are inside his apartment, Natasha has to realize that maybe, he’s just as lonely as herself. That he has no one, except for a one-eyed mutt and a woman who could be his daughter.

*********************

Try as they might, they can’t draw out the inevitable any longer, and so, they make the trip to SHIELD HQ. Back at the apartment, Clint gave her the tip to hold her stomach at any given time, and apparently, it does the trick.

Nobody dares to stop Clint when he leads her through the headquarter, straight down to their Medical ward, instead of dropping her off at Holding and sending a doc there.

His handler is there, already waiting for them, and at first glance, he seems to be a friendly guy. But Natasha has seen too much, has seen the monsters lurking behind even the friendliest faces, and so she opts to give him the benefit of a doubt and keep him at arm’s length, for now. Besides, the whole checking in process takes up almost all of her mental capacity anyway.

She doesn’t react at all to the fact that Clint stays at her side during all the checkups - they ARE married, after all - and somehow, Natasha even draws a little bit of strength from his protectiveness.

As expected, she’s transferred into Holding after the first round of checkups, and one by one, the top agents of SHIELD drop by, all of them under Clint’s watchful eye. They keep asking her, milking her for info, which she gladly gives them, cause she knows how to hold up her end of a bargain.

She even glares at the doctor when they try to take more breaks between the rounds of interrogation, but it takes to have Clint telling her that her unborn baby needs these breaks more than she could imagine to drive the point home.

Fury is the last one to interrogate her, and he’s also the one to bring up the issue of her new whereabouts, when Clint surprises her again (and, judging by Fury’s expression, him as well) when he announces that she will stay with him, at his apartment.

*********************

Where they are met with Kate hovering just inside her own apartment doorway, a casserole in her hands. The minute she sees Natasha, she all but thrusts the dish into Nat’s hands, stating that no one should be subjected to Clint’s questionable food choices at their first evening here.

In the days and weeks following, they get into something akin to a rhythm. Clint shops everything she could imagine (and even more she couldn’t) available for having a baby in the house, even a crib that gets assembled and put up in the second guest room, even though Natasha keeps insisting that she was going to give her daughter up for adoption as soon as she was born.

Natasha spends most of this time at the apartment. Sure, SHIELD offered her to use their gym and other training facilities, but after a first try, Natasha was close to blowing something (or kill someone). Why? They only had, like, a handful of exercises considered “safe” for a pregnant woman, and any kind of other facilities, like the range, were virtually cordoned off for her anyway.

So when Clint goes on his first big mission after Brussels, he sets Kate as well as his colleagues May and Hill up to tide her over. And surprisingly to everyone involved, Natasha walks away from that with two brand-spanking-new friendships (or at least the foundation for them, friendships don’t come easy in the Spy Community)

Then Clint comes back home, and she tries to live up to her new title of “wife”. Not so much in doing anything in the household, but in the way that she waits for him in the living room, with Lucky by her side, and welcomes him home with a kiss - only to be rejected.

And dang it, this rejection hurts. A lot. A lot more than Nat had expected it.

At least, she gets the confirmation from him that their marriage is just one out of convenience, nothing more.

Still, Clint’s behaviour wouldn’t leave her alone, mostly because it was somewhat like a clear danger towards her own safety after the baby is born, so she seeks out Kate’s help. If anyone, his neighbour might know more about him.

And Kate does shine a light on him, but not before Natasha ends up giving away more about her than she initially had planned. Which makes her angry at herself. She’s getting sloppy, that’s for sure. At a time where she definitely can’t afford it at all.

Though what she learns about Clint (besides him having an ex-wife) leaves her surprised. Apparently, they were more alike than expected, if only for how pathological they both are - her with Paranoia, he with helping others.

As Kate adds, he even helps people who either will bite him in the future, or already have bitten him, so to speak, all with a leveled look at Natasha. She only can reassure the other woman that she doesn’t plan on hurting Clint in any way, ever.

Back in his apartment, Natasha keeps thinking the intel over and over, realizing that all she was to Clint was a need, something he wanted to fix, not something to take advantage of.

So what could she offer him that would help her as well?

While mulling about that, Natasha carves her own niche at SHIELD, so to speak. It’s a slow progress, but one by one, first Melinda and then Sharon tag along, one with teaching her various relaxing methods like Tai Chi, the other with giving names to faces and help her seeing who got which part of her intel (and what they were doing with it). It settles something in Natasha, somehow, and gives her room to focus on the matter at hand.

If she was honest, she really doesn’t like that SHIELD sends Clint out on so many missions. A part of her thinks it’s their way of punishing him for bringing her in and demanding all the contracts she signed with them, another part argues that he’s a field agent after all, and just because he had brought something along from the last big one, it doesn’t mean that he can’t go out back there anymore.

Still, Natasha worries about him, more than she actually wants to acknowledge. But try as she might, she can’t dwindle down the fact that, if you take away all the contracts and promises, Clint was the only thing standing between her and a killer commando.

She still mulls about it all when she hears him coming back, late in the night. Judging alone by the sound of his footsteps, she can discern that he’s tired to the bone.

Which in turn gets her out of bed after all, first only to watch him in the little bit of light that comes in through the blinds, since he refused to turn on the lights inside.

At long last, she approaches him, calling out his name as softly as possible, before stopping at the stove and turning on the little light above it.

What she sees, shocks her a bit, but before she can dwell on it, one of his hands reach out and touch her baby bump, sending an unexpecting warmth through her whole being.

And somehow, this encounter changes everything between them.

Natasha tugs him into the bedroom, intend on taking care of him, for a change. Clint lets her do it, most likely because he’s way too tired, too wrung out from the mission to protest at all.

*********************

The next morning comes around, and despite him coming home so late, he’s up early - only to realize that Nat is already up, and making coffee at the stove.

She hears him shuffle into the kitchen, every step telling her that he’s hurting everywhere, but still is too proud (or too stubborn) to take any painkillers.

Right that moment, her daughter decides to play with mama and gives her a light kick. In a heartbeat, Natasha grabs the first hand of Clint she can reach and places it on her bump, willing the child growing inside her to repeat the action.

And the baby does, bringing not only a soft smile to his features, but also urges him to call out a “Hey there” to the bump, said in the softest voice Nat has heard from him so far.

The baby calms down again, Clint pulls his hand away and addresses the coffee brewing, pointing out that she’s not allowed to have any, due to her pregnancy.

Which Nat only answers with a roll of her eyes and a smile, before telling him that the coffee is only for him, earning her one of his smiles in return.

Finally, they really start to talk, something that Clint realizes is long overdue, along with the fact that he has already grown accustomed to having Nat at the apartment, that her silent presence in these rooms was missing all the time.

He prods her slowly, coaxing the words out of her, until Nat finally discloses that, despite her adamancy of giving her daughter away right after birth, she somehow wants to raise the girl as well.

She follows that admission with another kiss, but different to the last time she initiated one, he doesn’t reject her this time. Quite the contrary, and by the time they break it off, he feels dizzy, a quick glance at her telling him she’s experiencing the same.

Clint reassures her that she’s not alone anymore, that she has him, that they have Kate, who apparently already has volunteered to babysit once they are both back at work.

And for the first time since learning about the pregnancy, Natasha has hope blossoming in her that they both, her AND her daughter, have a future in their books.

*********************

Some months pass by, until Natasha’s due date finally arrives. Clint is at her side, through everything, leaving not an ounce of doubt in anyone that he only married the Widow for getting SHIELD access to her intel.

Natasha brings a beautiful, healthy girl into the world, all the while already making plans on taking full advantage of the SHIELD gym once she gets the clear from the doctors. Yet, her heart threatens to flow over with love and feelings of happiness whenever her baby girl is placed into her arms.

And most surprising to her, she even remembers the words to old Russian lullabies, words she thought were lost to her forever, buried under decades of doctrines and disciplines and whatnot.

Clint is another constant source of surprise in the wake of the birth. With an efficiency that is stunning, he takes over changing the girl’s diapers from the nurses, making the silliest noises at the baby while doing so.

Natasha watches him with a fond expression, laughing along with the gurgling sounds coming from her, no, _their_ little bundle of joy.

And the smile she receives when she tells him the name she has come up for their baby girl is not only enough to light up half of New York, it also smoothes out another patch of wrinkles inside of her.

Merry Barnes Barton was an accident, but probably the best of accidents that could have happened.

*********************

The End

*********************


End file.
